Tuesday, September 8, 2009

My second-to-last day in London started pretty much similarly to before: the keyword is “slow”. It wasn’t before 10:30am when I left the hotel room for breakfast.

Then it was time to go pick-up the concert tickets. Apparently the venue in which the concert is taking place has decided to allow attendees to pick-up their tickets a few days before the show, in order to ease up the congestion at the box office. As Jeroen is arriving tomorrow from Amsterdam, I had the idea of picking up his ticket for him so we save time tomorrow.

Walking towards the Prince’s Trust place, a 2km walk, has been rather frustrating. Millions of cars on the road, traffic doesn’t move – which I don’t really care about as I was walking – but it’s been a very hot day today, and smog was unbearable.

As these tickets are by no means cheap, I was planning on carrying them in my pocket, which explains my utter disappointment when I found out that these tickets are huge in size and enclosed within an envelope too big to fit in a pocket unless you’re an elephant or other large mammal. I therefore had to walk all the way back with two envelopers held in my hands. On my way back, I witnessed what appeared to be an extremely drunk brute beating somebody up inside a bus. Traffic stopped in both directions and bystanders did what they do best – stood by and watched.

Once I dropped the envelopes at the hotel, it was time to start yet another round of exploration. I haven’t seen the London Bridge yet, so that became my next destination.

Weather was (still is, actually, as I’m sitting in a cafe to write this post) quite hot and humid, precisely the kind of weather I migrated 10,000km west to avoid.

Getting to the London Bridge is a snap by using the underground. There’s a stop right at the pathway that leads to the bridge. This is what it looks like from a distance:

And here is the best picture I could take:

The pathway that leads to the bridge is beset by all bunch of neat constructs and monuments, and there are plenty of places when you can sit, enjoy the view and relax. You could easily spend a few hours in the area.

Stopped for short late lunch at “Bagel Street Deli & Cafe” right by the bridge, and found it very funny to find out that Bagel Street now also sells wraps. Currently I’m parking my butt on a comfortably-padded bench at Caffe Nero. I don’t know why I keep on visiting this chain, their coffee isn’t that good. I guess it’s because they have Caffe Nero at pretty much every corner.

Today is my last easy day in London. Tomorrow, Jeroen will be arriving at the afternoon, and after sitting down for early dinner to catch up, we’ll be making our ways to the Hurlingham Club and watch Mark Knopfler playing “Get Lucky” live for the first time ever - for me, the most exciting event this year.